California Packing Corporation

Summary

Business Details
Primary Town	San Francisco
Primary Business	Cannery
Aliases	Del Monte

Summary

Founded in 1916 as the merger of five major canners: [Griffin and Skelley], Central California Canneries, J.K. Armsby, [California Fruit Canners Association], and Alaska Packers Association. They canned fish from Alaska, pineapple from Hawaii, fruit from California.

Locations

Location	Years	Address	Details
Alameda	1925, 1941	Buena Vista at Sherman
Alameda	?	???
Atwater	1922-1939
Berkeley	1941	2424 Fourth Street
Emeryville	-1989	1200 Park Avenue
Emeryville	1941	40th and Halleck
Fairfield	1926	???
Fresno
Fruitvale	1941	3000 East 9th Street
Hanford	1921, 1922
Kahului HI	1926-1934	120 Kane Street
Kingsburg	1922-2012	1101 Marian Avenue
Los Angeles	1921
Marysville	1921
Modesto	1969 - ~2000	4000 Yosemite Blvd
Monterey	1926-1962
Mt. Eden	1931
Oakland	1921, 1941	First and Myrtle
Oakland	1941	First and Filbert Street
Oakland	1941	742 Saunders
Oakland	1941	85th Ave
Oakland	1941	(1941) 1100 29th Ave
Planada	1922	Highway 120
Rio Vista	1921,1922,1953
Roseberry	1921
Sacramento		3rd and X Street
Sacramento		19th and R Street
Sacramento	1922, 1938	1600 2nd Street
Sacramento	1925	17th and C Street
Salem	1916-	???
San Francisco	1916, 1921	North Point Ave.
San Francisco	1920, 1921	101 California Street
San Jose	1919	Cinnabar Street
San Jose	1919	849 Auzerais St.
San Jose	1923, 1936, 1940, 1945, 1949	725 W. San Fernando
San Jose	1930	Montgomery Street at Cinnabar.
San Jose	1931	Lincoln Ave.
San Jose	1936, 1940	Auzerais and Meridian Road
San Jose	1936, 1940, 1945	7th and Jackson
San Jose	1936, 1940, 1945	Sunol and Auzerais St.
San Jose	1940, 1945, 1964	7th and Jackson
San Jose	1964	Monterey Road
San Jose	1964	734 The Alameda
San Jose	1964	Hostetter Road
San Leandro	1928	Thornton Avenue
San Leandro	1931	752 Saunders
San Lorenzo	1922, 1931
Sanger	1922
Santa Ana	1921
Santa Rosa	1921
Stockton	1975	2716 East Minor
Sunnyvale	1904-1926, 1930-?	185 Evelyn
The Dalles	1921
Tulare	1922	???
Visalia	-1922
Visalia	1922	???
Visalia	1922
Woodland	-2000
Yuba City	1921

Photos

Del Monte Plant #21, Milpitas John C. Gordon Collection, San Jose State

CalPak (California Packing Corp. aka Del Monte) Plant 51 John C. Gordon Collection / San Jose Library

California Packing Corporation Plant No. 184 Sunnyvale Library

Del Monte Plant #3 Preservation San Jose

Details

Bought Emeryville cannery from Virden Packing in 1927.

History comments that earnings in 1930 fell from $6/share to 9c, 1932 were worst losses ever.

San Leandro: See Arcadia book. Martinez and Saunders Street (1921 Western Canner and Packer Sacramento: See article on cannery Stella Adoa Baptista oral history on life in the canneries. Comment on Sunnyvale historical document suggests that some dried fruit receiving houses closed in 1926 as receiving was centralized at Plant 51 in San Jose. In 1920, had 61 plants, 53 in California, 4 in Oregon, 3 in Washington, and 1 in Idaho. Many 1920 references cited in March 1920 Canning Age in mention of customers of Main Belting Company, Philadelphia May 1921 Canning Age magazine summarizes the CalPak annual report. January 1923 Western Canner and Packer notes that pimientos are shipped from San Pedro or Santa Ana.

1963 corporate summary at University of Pennsylvania Dried fruit was 5% of their business in 1963, with three packing plants handling the fruit.

Alameda: Current buildings date from 1925. Designer: Philip Bush designed many other Calpak buildings. (See Alameda Magazine article.) Buena Vista at Sherman. Plans Listed as Benton and Buena Vista / in 1941 Oakland City Directory.

Kahului: Built 1926, sold to Maui Pineapple Company / [Alexander and Baldwin] in 1934.

Monterey plant was Monterey Fishing and Canning Company, started in 1902 by Harry Malpas and Otsaburo Noda. Became Pacific Fish Co in August 1908.

Merced: "Largest cannery in the world being built to handle 1924 pack from company's great peach and apricot orchard" "Western Canner and Packer 1922":http://books.google.com/books?id=2S0dAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA83&dq=cannery+work+campbell&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NI-qT8eiF-zciAL0ocCzAg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cannery%20work%20campbell&f=false December 1922 Western Canner and Packer notes Del Monte is starting work on big cannery to handle pack of Planada-Tuttle orchard in 1924 season. Feb 1923 WC&P says it'll be largest cannery in world.